


My Lady's Sword

by redroslin



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Accidental Queen Laura Roslin, F/F, Frak everything the world needs more Dee/Kara, Horse Trainer Dee, Knights of the Realm Lee and Kara, Philosopher-Mage Baltar and his infinite army of golems, Sword and Sorcery AU, War Leader Bill Adama, it practically writes itself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 07:04:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21193586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redroslin/pseuds/redroslin
Summary: "Hey there, Princess," said a voice out of thin air.Dee bumped her head against the stone wall of the pool, caught herself, and scowled up at the woman standing backlit at the edge of the rough-hewn staircase."I'm not a princess," Dee said, unthinking."You sure about that?" the other said. "'Cause you're pretty enough to be."





	My Lady's Sword

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Saathi1013](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saathi1013/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Multifandom "Favorite Trope" Drabbles](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12013659) by [Saathi1013](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saathi1013/pseuds/Saathi1013). 

> A.K.A. An excerpt from the novel-length sword and sorcery AU epic I'll never write; concept inspired by [Saathi1013's Dee/Kara knight-and-lady drabble](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12013659/chapters/27188172) and by conversations about how tragic it was that I hadn't written both my OTPs into one fic.
> 
> Making Dee a magic user felt like a cop out, so she's a horse trainer instead! Just like in canon, she's not primarily a fighter but she's the expert in something battle-related and vital to the war effort.
> 
> If anyone wants to take any part of this universe and run with it, please do so with my blessing! Especially if you'll write me some Dee/Kara! *grabby hands*
> 
> And if you're looking for a reference image for Blackbird, [this is how I picture him](https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/323696291949843057) (in case the link is dead: image is of a massive black Friesian or Andalusian stallion rearing on command, while being held on a short lead by a handler on the ground)

It was punishingly hot in Southern Caprica, and all Dee wanted was to find somewhere cool to soak away the aches of the day. The sun beat down mercilessly as she made her way along the narrow trail behind the stable outbuildings toward the relief of the hills. The path curved around sheltering, ancient oaks, down a steep gravel trail, and finally past a signpost informing travelers that they were now leaving Ragnar Outpost.

Just out of sight, the rapids beckoned, chuckling and splashing their way through the trees as the Scorpia River plunged toward distant Delphi. After the day she'd had, Dee would have happily waded into the river itself and borne the risk of being swept away, but she'd been told that there were shallow pools nearby, fed by the spring and carved out of the rocky hills when the outpost was founded half a century ago during the first Great Golem War. Shallow pools with comfortable shelves for resting on, riddled with little nooks and crannies "perfect for lovers," if Stablemaster Gaeta was to be believed.

Not that Dee was looking for a lover, as she'd made abundantly clear to Gaeta. All she wanted was somewhere cool to rest for a moment, someplace where no one would pelt her with questions--or come blundering in shouting while she was trying to saddle break a three-year-old stallion who'd been left to run wild at pasture too long.

She'd been awake since crack of dawn, working to familiarize herself with the stables and the seven horses she'd been tasked to break for saddle and train for war. She'd skipped lunch in favour of resettling her charges in their new homes after the decay in the main stable block became apparent--and as a result she'd sharpened her tongue on one of the Queen's messengers when he came barrelling through a wrong door and found himself in the training ring while she was working with poor, fractious Blackbird.

Dee had been trying to reassure the young stallion that walking sedately around the ring with a saddle and a sack of grain on his back--and then a very light rider, namely Dee herself--was an ordeal he'd survive. Of course, she hadn't factored in a lost squire, slammed doors, spooked horses, and awkward apologies, all of which had set her back at least a week in Blackbird's training. A week she didn't have to spare, frak it.

And none of that had been Blackbird's fault, but it meant she needed to clear enough of her schedule to undo the damage Squire Billy's blunder had done.

(If anything, the entire mishap had only reinforced her impression that while Dee might be the newest addition to Queen Roslin's forces, _no one_ knew their way around Ragnar yet.)

Even without the interruption, though, Dee would have had her hands full with Blackbird. The charger was full of fire and bile, unruly with youth and independence, but he would make some knight an excellent steed once he forgot how deeply he resented being forced him from the easy life of a prize stud-in-the-making to the travails of a warhorse.

Dee couldn't really blame him for his frustrations. Sometimes she felt more like Blackbird than she really wanted to admit.

She was supposed to be at home, raising racehorses for her family, not on the edge of contested territory training war steeds for Queen Roslin's knights. But the surest way to make the gods laugh, as the saying went, was to tell them your plans.

Dee had had plans, once. They'd gone out the window when she realized she couldn't stay safely in Saggitaron, sequestered with her family, while Baltar's golems ravaged far-flung Caprica and Picon territories. The Philosopher-Mage wasn't going to take two provinces and then stop at the border, and Dee couldn't stand to sit at home manipulating courser bloodlines and pretending the world wasn't burning when she could be using her skills to help support the war effort against him.

Her family didn't understand, but they would someday.

For now, though, all she wanted was a long soak and a little peace and quiet. How much further could the blasted spring be?

_There_. _Finally_. She saw the first of the pools glimmering through the trees.

She bypassed the first set of interconnected watering holes and chose a deep pool recessed into the stone, reached by a set of broad, curved stairs that led into a little natural bowl. Sheltered under the branches of a willow tree, the pool was perfect: she'd be fully out of sight from the path, and its shelf benches were small enough that she imagined the knights (and anyone else who might wander along) were likely to choose the larger waters for communal bathing.

She'd been lying in stillness for a blissful quarter hour, her mind adift, when she was proven wrong.

"Hey there, Princess," said a voice out of thin air.

Dee bumped her head against the stone wall of the pool, caught herself, and scowled up at the woman standing backlit at the edge of the rough-hewn staircase.

"I'm not a princess," Dee said, unthinking.

"You sure about that?" the other said. "'Cause you're pretty enough to be."

Definitely one of the knights--all swagger and bullshit, every last one of them--except maybe for the warleader's son, who'd seemed like a decent sort when he'd toured Dee around the outpost three days ago.

"Shut it," she told her unwelcome visitor. "I'm a soldier, just like you."

Gliding back off the ledge, the stranger sunk a few steps down the carved stone staircase. "Not _just_ like me."

As the woman stepped out of shadow and into the sunlight, Dee caught a flash of messy blonde hair and a pointed chin. _Ah_. It was the sharp-tongued knight who'd been teaching swordfighters when Dee had passed the training grounds on her first day.

The knight had been bare-headed, her wheat-coloured hair a flyaway mess, sweating something fierce in the hot sun, and still Dee had thought her one of the most beautiful sights she'd ever seen.

Bedamned knights. More trouble than they were worth.

"True enough," Dee agreed easily. "Since you'll find I have the sense not to wander around in three stone of tin can."

The knight grinned. "And we're not letting you anywhere near the front lines to risk your gorgeous ass without armour."

Dee had no intention of putting herself in the way of direct combat, with or without armour, but that didn't stop her from responding to the challenge in the woman's voice. "And who's going to stop me? You?"

"Maybe," the knight said nonchalantly, stripping off her bulky outer tunic. She paused, one arm still encased in padded layers, to ask, "Mind some company?"

Not two minutes ago, the answer would have been a straightforward rejection of anyone who happened along, but--

"What--no, of course not," Dee heard herself say.

"That's good," the knight said, continuing to strip efficiently and without a shred of modesty. "Everyone's trying to be respectful and give you your privacy since you're new around here, but--"

Dee snorted. "Everyone except you?"

"That's right," the blonde agreed, dropping the last of her garments to the ground and turning to face Dee, skyclad. "I'm not much for respect. But I'm _all_ about the warm welcome."

Dee laughed. "You haven't even told me your name."

"You haven't told me yours."

"I haven't stripped naked and propositioned you, either."

"Oh," the knight grinned, flicking the ends of her hair casually off one shoulder, "I'd be more direct than that. If I were to proposition you."

"Really?" Dee smirked. "And what about fraternization rules?"

"Frat rules? Please. The Queen is totally frakking Lee, so it's not like she can hold us to rules she doesn't follow herself. And anyway, you're not in my chain of command."

"_The Queen is--?_" Dee reconsidered her first impression of the warlord's _staid,_ _sensible_ son. Well then. "Really."

"Yuh-huh," the knight confirmed, stepping lightly down the staircase until she was submerged to the hips in cool water. Dee couldn't pull her eyes from the pebbling of her nipples or her sweet, rosy areolas.

"How do you kn--" She cut herself off. "Never mind, I don't want to know."

"Lee and I grew up together," the knight said, sighing as she slipped further into the pool. "He tells me everything. And when he tries to hide something, he's a terrible liar and his face gives it all away."

"Are you sure you're talking about Lee Adama? The war leader's son?"

"Lord Galactica's son, Leland Adama, Cavalry Ancillary General--CAG to you--and a royal pain in my ass. In all ways except literally, of course."

"Of course," Dee agreed, bemused.

The knight flicked a spray of water in Dee's direction. "Don't tell me you're into Lee, because that would be a waste of everyone's time--and also I won't believe you after the way you've been staring at my tits."

"Maybe in another life," Dee admitted ruefully, a hot blush rising in her cheeks. "In this one, he's not exactly the knight who caught my eye."

The blonde grinned broadly. "That so?"

Dee sighed ruefully. "Were you hitting on me out of habit earlier, or for real?"

The knight shrugged. "Is there a difference?"

"Yes."

"C'mon," the knight said mulishly. "You know you're into all this."

Well, she wasn't wrong.

Dee shook her head. "You're lovely, but I'm not interested in being toyed with."

"And what if I want to be the one who gets toyed with?"

"Then you could make a start by telling me your name."

"What's in a name?" The knight smirked at Dee's unimpressed glare. "All right. Fine. I'm Kara. Kara of Thrace."

"Milady Starbuck," Dee nodded demurely, trying not to dwell on the newfound realization that it was this woman's mount--young, hotheaded Blackbird, destined to be ridden by _The Starbuck_\--that Dee had spent the afternoon breaking to saddle. "You can call me Dee."

"Just Dee?"

Dee nodded sharply. "Just Dee."

"A lady of mystery. I'm into it."

Dee laughed. "Good. Now come here."

"Come where?"

"Did you or did you not," and Dee shook her head in mock disapproval, "intrude upon my privacy and strip naked in the hope of overwhelming me with your athleticism and impressing me into bed?"

Kara laughed unselfconsciously and took two steps forward into the deeper middle of the pool.

"Come," Dee reiterated, "here."

Another step out of the centre of the pool, and Kara groped for the stone overhang at Dee's back, effectively pinning Dee between her arms. Dee drew a sharp breath as Lady Kara's muscular forearms brushed her shoulders.

"You did," Dee said, and pushed herself off the stone bench and into the knight's warm, supple body.

It was a good kiss, firm and sweet. Dee kept both feet planted but stroked her way up Kara's neck, twining her wet fingers through the short tangle of the knight's hair, and pulled.

The lady knight groaned into Dee's mouth and the sound sent shivers down to Dee's soles. She pressed forward, pushing the knight back until they were toe to toe in the chest-high centre of the water.

Lady Kara stood several inches taller than Dee, but not tall enough to make kissing her any kind of hardship. _Perfect_.

"You're lovely," Dee said again as they broke the kiss. "Come back to my quarters with me."

Lady Kara tilted her head to the side and smirked. "If I knew you were this easy, I would've told you my name days ago."

"I wouldn't have complained, but then we might have given your young trainees the shock of their lives, if you had."

The knight shrugged. "The nuggets can stand a little upset to their routine. Probably be good for them."

"Sounds like rubbish."

"I talk a lot of rubbish."

"Good to know," Dee said. "Fair warning in return: I'm the one training your lunatic warhorse. Your life is literally in my hands. You sure you want to start this up with me?"

Kara threw her head back and laughed, and the sound went through Dee like thunder in a clear blue sky. Oh, she was gone on this woman, all right.

"Death threats! And you don't even know me yet."

Dee blushed--again, damn it. "Gods, I'd never--"

"Shh," Lady Kara interrupted her. "I love it. Get over here."

She kissed Dee soundly and Dee let herself be kissed, feeling simultaneously embarrassed and joyful and overwhelmed. Gods, her life would never be boring with Starbuck in the picture, would it?

"You're really something," Dee told her as they broke apart.

The knight smiled. "You have no idea, princess."


End file.
